Hackers Exploit Ethereum Rival Harmony One Bridge
One Ethereum (ETH) competitor is taking a massive hit after hackers drained approximately $100 million worth of crypto from its cross-chain bridge.
The Harmony (ONE) team says the breach occurred on the morning of June 24th on the Horizon bridge, which enables users to move crypto assets between Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain and Harmony.
“The Harmony team has identified a theft occurring this morning on the Horizon bridge amounting to approximately $100 million. We have begun working with national authorities and forensic specialists to identify the culprit and retrieve the stolen funds.”
Harmony hit a high of $0.0268 on June 23rd before dropping to a low of $0.0236 on June 24th, a nearly 12% drop in a matter of hours. ONE has since bounced and is trading at $0.025 at time of writing.
According to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, crypto assets worth $99.7 million were stolen from the Binance Smart Chain and the Ethereum blockchains.
Elliptic also says the stolen assets include the native tokens of the two blockchains and various stablecoins designed to maintain a US dollar peg.
“A variety of assets were taken, including ETH, BNB, Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC) and Dai (DAI). The stolen tokens have now been swapped for ETH using decentralized exchanges – a commonly-seen technique with these hacks.”
According to Elliptic, the Harmony team seems open to holding a dialogue with the entity responsible for the heist based on a message embedded within an Ethereum transaction reading,
“The Harmony team is interested in communicating and negotiating. Please reach out at security@harmony.one to start a conversation. Communication can be anonymous.”
